


Glances

by accioteacups



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, F/M, Marauders, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23634046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accioteacups/pseuds/accioteacups
Summary: The time he first sees her, she's walking into a lecture, ten minutes late.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 60





	Glances

**Author's Note:**

> I found the opening of this in my drafts and we've reached 'rona levels of boredom so here we go!

The time he first sees her, she's walking into a lecture, ten minutes late. 

“Sorry,” she whispers, climbing past him to join her friend. He’s not sitting in his usual seat, and he momentarily feels very grateful for that. 

He watches as she sits down, as the girl on her left leans in to whisper the moment their lecturer turns away, as she whispers back. He sees her as she sits, back straight, eyes attentive as she tunes into what their professor is saying. She’s beautiful in a way he’s too stunned to process. 

He spends the rest of the lecture thinking about her. How hadn’t he noticed her before? It’s a big course, but this far into second year he thought that he at least recognised everyone. The girls she’s sitting with are familiar, so it’s possible he’s just never noticed her, which is amazing because now he has noticed her, he can’t seem to stop. 

An hour goes by, and he takes exactly zero notes, only realising that the lecture has ended when everyone around him stands up. He rushes out, too flustered to think about trying to talk to her, or explain to his friends why he’s moving so fast. 

x

The second time he sees her he's drunk. Wasted. The epitome of not intending to have a heavy night, yet somehow still ending up five pints deep with a vague plan to go clubbing after this. 

He's heading to the bar when he notices her, leaning on a wall laughing and watching people play pool. It's an honest laugh, a comfortable one. He thinks it might just be the most wonderful thing he’s ever heard.

He's at the bar debating shots or a pint when she stands next to him, leaning on the bar and trying to avoid the sticky patches, idly staring at the wall behind the bartender. There's a little furrow in her brow that he wants to kiss, and he feels weird the moment he thinks it, but once the thought is there it just won’t leave. 

“You're on my history course,” he blurts unexpectedly, “I think, I mean… weren't you late last week?” He doesn’t sound as drunk as he feels, and he’s thankful for that. She looks up at him, and he suddenly realises he’s towering over her. He leans down into the bar, trying to make himself shorter and less imposing. 

"Yeah, I thought I recognised you.” She smiles, and they chat. Idle stuff, what the course is like, how their lectures differ from first year, the essay they’d handed in last week. He buys her one drink, then two, and it’s only when her friends come over that he realises that they’ve been talking for well over an hour, and the bar is closed, and he has no idea where his friends are. 

She leaves, waving goodbye through the window as he checks his phone to see where his friends have got to. 

12:37am - we left you behind, didn’t want to interrupt you and make you all nervous. don’t screw it up!

He heads home, sobering up slightly as he walks. It’s cold, and a little damp with the promise of rain. He’s happy, excited. Nothing can dampen his mood, not the fact that he’s missed the last bus and has no money for a taxi, not the rain that starts when he’s halfway up the hill leading to his house, or the fact he didn’t bring his keys out with him and has to wake up his housemate. 

It’s only when he wakes up the next morning and struts into the kitchen that he realises.

He never got her name. 

x

The third time he sees her, a few days after the night in the pub, he’s back in his normal seat. He watches her come in, early this time, and sit with her friends on the opposite side of the lecture hall. He glances at her throughout, taking notes as he can’t afford to miss two weeks worth of notes, trying to be subtle. His friends notice, obviously, and nudge him throughout, laughing and muttering like school children. They get more than one nasty look, and only stop when someone behind pokes him hard in the back of his head. 

As their lecturer wraps up, he starts to shove his books away with as subtlety he can manage. The moment they’re dismissed he leaps up to go and catch her, but he gets caught in the crush of students, and by the time he gets through everyone, she’s long gone. 

He waits outside for his friends, watching as everyone he had pushed past gave him odd looks. He feels like an idiot. When his friends see the look on his face, they almost feel bad enough to not make fun of him.

Almost.

x

The fourth time he sees her, he’s leaving their lecture. He hadn’t been able to spot her in the hall, and hadn’t wanted to be too obvious in looking about for her, so he’d put his head down and focused on what he was being taught. 

She’s standing down the corridor talking to someone, and he beams and walks towards her, when he sees who she’s with. It’s the guy from his first year seminar group, the guy he’d argued with every week, who brought out the very worst in him. He smiled and waved at her as he passed, and she smiled back. 

It was best he didn’t interrupt, he thought, it’s best she doesn’t see that. He debates whether she looks a little hurt when he doesn’t stop. He thinks she might have.

x

The fifth time, he’s in the library. It’s a Saturday night, and the place is dead, but he’d got the marks back from his essay and they hadn’t been good. Not terrible, but not good. They’d pull his average down if his next few weren’t better, and so he was getting a head start on the essay they’d just been set. 

He’s in the silent section, despairing over the book he needed. It wasn’t there, where his phone said it should be, and it hadn’t been checked out by someone, so he started wandering around, checking the trolleys at the end of the stacks to see if it had been dumped onto one of them. He’s just about given up when he sees her, sitting at a desk, on her own, staring into space with the book he needed right in front of her. 

“Hey,” he whispers, sliding into the chair next to her, “can I borrow that?”

It’s not his smoothest pick up line, but it’s the truth and he hopes that’ll work in his favour. She looks at him, raising an eyebrow. 

“What do I get out of it?” She whispers softly back, and he realises she’s flirting with him. He’s a little bit dumbstruck, but he grins back and says- 

“My number? And maybe a coffee?” 

She pretends to consider, looking him up and down with exaggerated slowness, humming softly.  
There’s no one around, so they don’t really need to whisper, but they keep their voices low. She slides the book over, and smiles at him. 

“I’m Lily,” she says.

“James,” he replies.

**Author's Note:**

> Be honest, was this terrible? I read the opening I had and I was like ... this is Jily. I had fun, and that's what matters.


End file.
